chapter 39
“What are you doing with the gun, Liv?”
Van’s voice was a low, strumming pulse in her ears. But there was an unraveling edge to it that scared the shit out of her. She drew in a breath and hoped to hell Josh stayed out of sight.
She trailed her fingertips over the back of his hand where he cupped her breast, to soothe him, to reestablish their f*cked-up connection. “I thought you’d taken a permanent vacation.” He sank his teeth into the side of her throat, not enough to break skin, but the sharp pinch stole her breath and raised her on tip-toes. One shift of his hand and he could break her neck.
She leaned into the bite. “Did you come back to kill me?”
His arm and teeth released her with a jerk. She fell forward, righted herself, and spun with the gun raised in both hands.
Three days of stubble darkened his jaw. His steely eyes were void of their usual glint, sagging beneath his hood. His smirk seemed forced as he slid a toothpick in his mouth. “You’re the one pointing a gun.”
She aimed at his chest. His jacket concealed the strength of his body, but she knew every muscle, every twitch, every scar. He’d taken her virginity, trained her as a sex slave, whipped her, f*cked her, and loved her. She wasn’t any different from him. With one exception. She responded to the word No.
The light in the doorway behind him rippled. She didn’t shift her eyes, fearing it would give away Josh’s presence. To distract Van, she backed to the wall, until the length of the room separated them, and jerked her chin at the dolls. “Do they mean you won’t be pulling my hair anymore?”
“I won’t have a choice.” He searched her face longingly, desperately, as if collecting every detail into a special pocket of memory made just for her.
I needed something to remember you by.
She shivered and steadied the gun. “Why did you come back?”
The heat in his eyes said, To f*ck you. His suspicious non-answers said, To kill you.
“Just say it, Van.” If she shot him, Mattie was dead. If he killed her, Josh would kill him. Mattie was dead either way.
“I’m sorry about your mom.” Sincerity wrinkled the skin around his eyes, but his voice was a monotone hum. His lips clenched on the toothpick, flattening into a line. His gaze hardened.
He was planning something cruel. Her molars sawed together, her nerves stretching. She bit down so hard on her cheek the taste of copper filled her mouth. “You murdered Mom.” His face clouded, his timbre scratchy. “I’m sorry. I…” His expression blanked. He reached behind his back.
Jesus, he was going to kill her. Her heart stopped, and her finger slid over the trigger.
Time throttled into a series of choices, measured by the slam of her heart and the cascading motions that followed. Van tugged at something in the back of his jeans. She squeezed the trigger, and Josh yelled, “No!”
The recoil reverberated down her arms, and Van stumbled sideways.
He slumped against the bar. A dark circle of blood spread on the shoulder of his black t-shirt. He frowned at the crumpled paper in his hand, and the toothpick fell from his slack mouth.
“Oh, God.” Her voice was an echo in her fuzzy head. She lowered the gun, blinked. He hadn’t been reaching for a weapon.
He laughed, coughed. “I deserved that.” His legs slid out from beneath him, and he toppled to the floor.
Josh skidded through the room, tucking his gun in his jeans, his panic jolting her to move. Numb with shock, she handed the gun to him and knelt beside Van.
A river of blood soaked his shirt, coursed down his arm, and pooled beneath him. He lay on his back and peered up at her with the most heart-breaking expression on his contorted, beautiful face.
No hint of anger or blame. It was as if he knew he was dying, and he was okay with it.
She pushed his hood off his forehead and cupped his damp cheeks. “You killed my mom. I thought you were going to kill me.”
He shook his head in the frame of her hands. “Tried to save her.” His chest heaved. “Drove…
wasn’t fast enough.” He gripped her wrist and held her eyes, his nostrils flaring. “I was too late.” His eyebrows clenched together, and his breaths rushed out as he squeezed his shoulders against the floor. “I’m sorry.”
A low, agonizing hum vibrated her chest. He wouldn’t lie about that, and the realization tore through her in a barrage of buckshot. “Oh no, Van.” Her chest convulsed, and a sob climbed her throat. She stroked his cheek, staring at the blood soaking his shirt. “Oh, God. What have I done?” His eyes fluttered closed for a moment and snapped open, glassy with pain. “It’s okay. There’s no—” His spine arched, and he moaned. “No contract.”
She gulped at the thinning air and pressed her hands to the bullet hole. “No contract? No hit man to collect on your death? Or Mr. E’s?” She glanced at Josh, his eyes wide and locked on Van.
“A bluff.” The corner of Van’s mouth wavered as if attempting a smile. Sweat trickled down his temples. His gaze landed on Josh, and his lips bowed downward.
A bluff. She knew Van’s coercions intimately, and this wasn’t one of them. He would never f*ck around with Mattie’s life. Tears rose up and burned trails down her cheeks. “If he doesn’t hire hit men then who killed Mom?”
“He arranged it.” His voice quaked. “His job—” His chest caved in, and his teeth snapped together in agony.
Warm streams of red pumped over her fingers. The steel in his eyes dulled, his complexion a pallor of white. He was losing too much blood. Josh disappeared behind the bar, banging things around in the cabinet.
The paper crinkled in Van’s fist. “You love him?” His chest stilled as if he weren’t breathing at all.
She didn’t glance away as she nodded, slowly, confidently. If anyone understood the connection between captor and captive, he did.
He closed his eyes and released a slow, easy breath.
Josh returned with an armful of dish towels, pressed them against the wound, and lifted Van’s shoulder to see beneath his body. Van hissed, his lips pulling away from clamped teeth, his eyes rounding in shocked pain.
“There’s no exit wound.” Josh lowered him to the floor and held the towels in place.
She caught Josh’s eyes, and they shared a harrowing look. The bullet was still in there. She reached in her back pocket and handed him the phone. “The code to unlock it is 0054. Call 911.”
“No cops,” Van murmured. He raised the wadded paper in his hand. “He’ll know.” She flattened the edges of the news clipping, watching at Van’s shallowing breaths, and read the first sentence of the article.
Austin Police Chief, Eli Eary, stood at the podium during a recent celebration to honor his career…
“Mr. E.” Van’s voice jolted through her.
Her veins seized with shock, her body shivering. “Eli Eary? The police chief who handled my disappearance? He’s Mr. E?”
Van nodded, his hand gripping her knee. “My dad.”
She choked, her throat thick with tears, panic sprinting through her blood. She gave the paper to Josh and wrapped her hand around Van’s cold, sweaty one. Her thoughts wheeled violently around the axis that was her arrangement. “That’s why he gave me to you, why he’s so lenient with you.” It also explained why Mr. E hadn’t punished him for his stunt at the intro meeting with Camila.
He’d simply banned him from future meetings and deliveries.
Van’s eyes flashed, his voice straining. “He turned me into…this.” His lips curled into a weak snarl. “He killed your mother. I never—” He coughed and slapped a hand over Josh’s, adding pressure to the towels. “My mom was one of his.”
“One of his…” She searched his red-rimmed gaze and found a haunting, deeply rooted pain. “She was a slave?” She looked at Josh, seeking his reaction and perhaps his comfort.
Josh pressed one hand on the towels, the other settling on her back. His gaze formed a grim mirror of her own, creasing at the corners.
Was that why his mother fell into a life of drugs? Because she’d been a slave? Resentment engulfed her, shaking her limbs. Mr. E had ruined so many lives.
“Came back to kill him.” Van panted. “Needed your help.”
Across the room, the dolls waited at the table, his morbid things to remember her by. Her lungs shuddered. “Then you were going to disappear. You were going to let me go.” Guilt ravaged her insides, twisting and fraying.
“Have to kill him.” His eyes glassed over, his gasps weakening. “He’ll avenge me.” He choked.
“He’ll kill Livana.”
“Livana?” The unfamiliar name hit her where she breathed. A name formed from two… “Mattie’s real name is Livana?”
He closed his eyes, his nod so devastatingly subtle beneath his short, bucking exhales. She was losing him.
“Van? Where’s Livana?”
“She’s…” His eyes flickered open, unfocused, and confused. He reached for her face.
She leaned in to meet his hand, eyes blurry, heart collapsing. “Van.” Her voice rasped, clogged.
“What’s Livana’s last name?”
His clammy fingers fumbled over her scar, across her lips, and lingered on her chin. He opened his mouth and strangled on an incoherent noise that died in the air. His eyes drifted closed, and his hand dropped.
“Nooo.” She scrambled atop him, fingers trembling over his bloodless face. “No, Van. No, don’t go,” she screamed.
Anguish took hold in a series of wails, raging in her throat, shaking her limbs. He’d tried to save Mom. He was a f*cking victim of his own father’s greed. Why had she thought he’d kill her? He never would’ve done that. He loved her.
Oh Jesus. F*ck. F*ck. Look what she did to him. “Oh, Van. I’m so sorry.” She couldn’t take it back. The bullet. The blood. She clung to his limp body, weeping, nose running, her heart shredding.
Arms came around her chest and pulled her to her feet. She elbowed him, dropped to her knees, and hugged Van’s waist. He gave her a few more minutes to release a torrent of sobs. Then his arms were back, wrapping around her and dragging her up.
He half-walked, half-lifted her to the sink, dragging her blood-soaked hands with his under the water. “I know you’re not thinking clearly, Liv, but we need to make a decision and act quickly.” She wept in breathless starts and stops, staring at the pink-tinted water spiraling down the drain.
With his body wrapped around her back, his hands slipped over hers, rubbing her arms and rinsing away the evidence. “We have two choices. One, we go to the cops. Mr. E is brought in for questioning. His corruption may be embedded amongst his peers or he may be working on his own.”
“And Mat— Livana? If he were incarcerated, he could still kill her.” Goddammit, she hurt. Her head. Her heart. This shit with Van shouldn’t hurt this badly.
He tore off some paper towels and dried their hands and arms. “Two, we look up his address and stop him ourselves. By whatever means possible. Right now. Before he tries to call Van. It’s the safest option for Livana.”
Turning to face him, she gathered strength from his eyes and curled her hands around his neck.
“Then it’s the only option.”
“Agreed.” The resolution in his taut expression matched his voice. “Mr. E tracks both of your phones?” He pulled her phone from his pocket.
“Yeah. Leave it on the counter.” She scrutinized their clothes for blood. Both in dark t-shirts, the smudges were inconspicuous. With a final glance at the blood-soaked body on the floor, she pressed a fist to her chest and blinked away the watery ache in her eyes.
“There’s a handwritten Austin address on the back of the news article.” He held it up. “Mr. E?” She closed her eyes. “God love you, Van.” And goddamn him. He wasn’t making it easy to walk away on sturdy legs. She grabbed his car keys from the counter and headed toward the garage.
“Van’s phone stays here. Mr. E is in contact with him hourly.” Josh remained a breath behind her. “If his phone is here, Mr. E will know he’s here. You’re hoping he doesn’t call?”
She punched the code in the keypad and grabbed two long scarves from the hook beside the door.
“Yeah. It’ll buy us some time to make the drive to Austin. Or if he does try to reach us, maybe he’ll think we’re asleep.” Van was asleep. Forever. F*ck, she should’ve been relieved, but the ache behind her breastbone burrowed in with brass knuckles.
Fifteen minutes later, she parked Van’s Kia in the Daddy’s Grill parking lot outside of town. The sun clung to the horizon as the gray cast of night crept in. She left the engine running. “I’ll be a minute. Try not to let anyone see your face.”
He glanced through the tinted windows at the three cars in the lot and said, sarcastically, “I’ll do my best.”
Inside, the waft of cigarettes and bar-b-que thickened her inhales. She stood before the only pay phone in the area, pumped it with coins, and lifted the receiver.
“Who is this?” The smooth, feline voice answered on the first ring.
“It’s me.”
Silence.
“This isn’t—” Liv cleared the rasp sticking in her throat. “This isn’t my usual call.”
“No, I don’t expect it is.” Camila’s tone was casual, but worry lurked beneath the surface.
“I need the house cleaned.” The tears broke through. She wiped them away. “There’s a mess on the kitchen floor.”
A gasp pushed through the line. “Your boy?”
“No. This one was never mine.”
“Oh.” A pause. “I feel like I should be happy.” Camila sniffed. “I feel…”
“Same here. I’m on my way to finish this. You have about an hour before the house gets crowded.
Two hours tops. Code is 0054.” In a perfect scenario, they would kill Mr. E and sneak off into the night. If she were busted during an assassination of the police chief, she would use the slave house as evidence in her defense. But she didn’t want to explain two bodies. If she failed in her attempt, she didn’t want Van discovered by Mr. E. “Is the time-frame doable?”
“It will be.” She thought the line disconnected, but Camila’s voice came back. “Be careful.”
“Thank you.” For everything. The phone went dead.
She drove in silence for ten minutes before Josh breached the conversation she’d been expecting.
“I’m trying to understand what you’re feeling right now and what you felt for him exactly.”
“I’m not sure I will ever understand it.” Van protected her from Mr. E in the best times, and her body bore his bruises on the worst days. Above all, he gave her a daughter. “I loved him and hated him with damaged devotion. He was embedded in my life for seven years. You don’t rip that away and feel nothing.”
He nodded, unbuckled his seatbelt, and gave her exactly what she needed. Twisting in the seat to face her, he slid a hand over her belly and clenched her hip. His other hand combed her hair from her nape, gripping the strands at the back of her head. With his body curled around her side, he dropped his head on her shoulder, the warm tendrils of his breath twining around her neck. He didn’t move for the length of the drive, and it was in that loving clench that she found the strength to forgive herself for killing Van.
Forty-five minutes later, they sat in the car, glaring across the street at a two-story home. Middle-income neighborhood, manicured lawn, well-lit walkway, and hanging flower baskets, it resembled every other house for ten blocks.
Dusk had settled. Cars lined the curb on both sides of the sparsely lit street. Van’s Kia blended in, but if Mr. E glanced at the car from his front window, he would spot them. The Kia was a generic car, but he knew what Van drove. He could make the connection if he were suspicious enough.
Josh caressed a warm palm over her thigh. “Mr. E hasn’t spent a dime of his illegal money, huh?” She wrinkled her nose at the simple lines of his lackluster home. “He’s a police chief. How would he explain million-dollar luxuries?”
His strong profile watched the street. “He could’ve cut ties, retired to the French Rivera, and lived off of his fortune. Why is he doing this?”
She blew her cheeks out. “Maybe he likes trafficking humans. The power. The corruption. Maybe he’s just greedy and wants more money before he retires.” She grabbed the two black scarves from the backseat and coiled one loosely around Josh’s neck. “Better than chains, right?” He leaned in and stole a kiss. “I love your chains, Liv.”
A flutter lifted in her chest. She looped the second scarf behind her neck. They would sneak in with their faces concealed, shoot the greedy motherf*cker, and leave before anyone noticed. Easy as gutting all the other millionaire slave-owners.
Across the street, the front door opened. Josh gripped her hand as an older man strode along the walkway, shoulders squared, eyes on his phone. The outdoor lighting accentuated the streaks of silver in his black hair. She recognized the police chief in the news articles.
The road was free of traffic noise. If she rolled down the window, they’d be able to hear his footfalls. Could she shoot him at this distance? A shiver licked down her spine. “What if he’s texting Van? Or me?” Her blood pressure skyrocketed. “What if he’s on his way to the house? F*ck, what do we do?”
He squeezed her hand tighter. “Deep breaths, Liv. We’ll follow him.” When Mr. E reached the SUV parked in the driveway, the front door opened again. A little girl ran out in blue-jeans and light-up sneakers with long brown hair winding around her shoulders. Her tiny chin pointed up, her eyes alight with laughter.
Fear and joy collided in a rush of nausea. “Josh. Her smile…Oh God, her smile.” She slapped at the button that rolled down the window just in time to hear, “Daddy! Daddy, wait up!” A disgustingly familiar chuckle bounced down the driveway. “Come on, Livana. We’re in a hurry.”